(01)
Aaron Lyles
At fifteen, Aaron Lyles published a snowboard magazine out of Southington, Connecticut. The local paper ran a headline: “Teen is chairman of the ‘board.’” The quotes were tongue-in-cheek. The misunderstanding was not.
In 1995, snowboarding still read as a joke to outsiders, something unserious, not worth asking deeper questions about. No one asked where the stories were, or why they mattered.
Meanwhile, the magazine was already finding its way beyond Connecticut, circulating in small ways across New England, and as far as Australia and Japan. The signal was there. It just was not being heard.
He has spent the decades since returning to that same pattern: institutions ask for signals, then mishear them, flattening nuance, overlooking ambition, and missing what is already in motion.
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Sleepless Nights
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Days Off
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Rabbit Holes
(02)
The Why
Survey response rates have collapsed over the past two decades. Pew Research Center tracked telephone survey participation falling from 36% in 1997 to 6% by 2018. Those still responding move quickly, selecting whatever ends the interaction fastest. The research industry calls this satisficing. Aaron calls it a design failure.
The fix was not better software. It required a different philosophy, grounded in behavioral science, consent-first design, and a stubborn belief that how you ask matters as much as what you ask. People will tell you everything if you give them the right conditions. Not a form. Not a five-point scale. A conversation built on respect.
That conviction became Warren.
(03)
The B-Side
Aaron built Nesolagus with intention. The path there was not linear. There were meaningful collaborations at the outset, partnerships considered, directions explored. What remained was clarity.
Every client commitment, every methodological claim, every conversation Warren holds on behalf of an organization is led from a single point of view and built with the right expertise based on the nuance of each project. The shape of the team follows the work. The standard does not.
He lives in Connecticut with his wife Samantha, a fashion designer and director whose work sits at the intersection of rigor and beauty. Their daughter Cru, named after a character in RAD, an 80s BMX cult film, is the center of everything. There is a miniature Schnauzer named Witty who has opinions.
The household runs on craft and stubbornness. So does the company.